NAHC Enhances its Legislative Advocacy Tools with New Social Media Platform
New Legislative Action Center allows advocates to get updates, notifications, and take action directly from their mobile devices while expanding a campaign’s reach by communicating with elected officials and policymakers via social platforms like Twitter and Facebook

The National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) today launched its new Legislative Information Center with additional tools for advocates that makes participating in grassroots action simpler, and broadens NAHC’s messages by contacting policymakers and elected officials via the most popular social media sites. The partnership between NAHC and Phone2Action will enhance NAHC’s current Legislative Action Network by bringing new and better ‘call to action’ tools to all of its members on federal policy issues - ensuring that home care and hospice advocates have an optimum reach to advocate for legislation and action on crucial issues.

Since 2013, President Obama, all 100 Senators and over 90 percent of House members were on Twitter. These numbers were similar for elected officials on Facebook. NAHC’s utilization of Phone2Action allows home care and hospice advocates to communicate with lawmakers directly on these platforms. However, the traditional calls to action via phone calls and email will still be deployed when needed.

As NAHC saw that more and more decision-makers were using social media platforms, the organization decided to invest in enhancing the scope and reach that its advocates could achieve. As a result, NAHC upgraded its advocacy tools, yet wants to ensure that its membership has all the information that it needs to fully participate in the new Legislative Information Center - and to insure that this transition is smooth for home care and hospice advocates around the country.

NAHC and its affiliate the Hospice Association of America (HAA) wanted to inform its members that there some new items have recently posted on the hospice quality reporting webpage:

1. An updated version of the HIS data submission specifications (v1.01.0) is now available on the HIS Technical Information portion of this website.

2. 4th Quarter Question and Answer (Q+A) Document Available: A new Q+A document is available on the “Hospice Item Set (HIS)” portion of this website. This document contains frequently asked HIS-related questions received on the HelpDesk October - December 2014.

3. Hospice Annual Payment Update (APU) Quick Reference Guide is now available
The CMS Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP) help desk has created an APU Quick Reference Guide for Hospice users. The guide is available on the “Help Desk” portion of the website. The guide contains tips for new data-submitters, resource links including links to the quarterly Question and Answer documents, and help desk contact information with a brief description of the issues handled by each help desk. The guide also includes information about filing a reconsideration request (used only when a facility has been determined to be non-compliant) and how to file an appeal.

CMS Regulations, Medicare Cuts and Copyaments, and Other Priorites for 2015NAHC members urged to voice their opinions on these and other critical issues by filling out one of the brief Priorites surveys below

In preparation for next year's largest gathering of home care and hospice advocates in Washington, DC at the 2015 Home Care and Hospice March on Washington, March 22-25, the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) and its affiliate Hospice Association of America (HAA) are soliciting members' and advocates' input regarding the most important and significant legislative and regulatory challenges and concerns for the home care and hospice community.

NAHC will use these priorities to guide its legislative and regulatory advocacy during the March on Washington and throughout 2015.

Three simple online questionnaires are now available to allow home care and hospice organizations, as well as other interested parties, to provide their input. The questionnaires will only be available through Tuesday, January 20, 2015.

Please take a moment and cast your votes as soon as possible. Agencies or organizations that provide only hospice care are asked to complete only the hospice questionnaire.

Items should be ranked on the questionnaires according to the level of importance the voter believes they hold for the home care and hospice community.

Again, questionnaires must be completed no later than Tuesday, January 20, 2015 to allow votes to be included in each final tally. Please note that each agency is allowed only one submission; faxed copies of the questionnaire cannot be accepted.